MY SCHOOL DAYS

MY SCHOOL DAYS
C 2011 Jojo

Mum told me I was a precocious child and taught myself to read by the time I was three. Strangely enough, my youngest son Mike, did it too so maybe it’s a genetic thing? I do remember that by the time I entered kindergarten, I was well and truly hooked on all the Bobbsey Twin books! Occasionally I see them on the shelves of antique stores and have been tempted to buy one, just for old time’s sake.

My first of many schools was the Agnes Erskine School in Recife where my family lived at the time. This school was Brazilian, but run by the American Methodist Church. Mum had been a border there and had married my father in the school chapel.

In Brazil, the term “Dona” is a title of respect given to women, regardless of their marital state, and is the equivalent of “Miss,” or “Mrs.”

I would also like to mention at this point that segregation of whites and blacks never happened in Brazil. There has never been any racial prejudices in Brazil that I can remember. It is truly a melting pot of many races, all happily intermingling through marriage, and nobody gives a damn what colour a person is. I would say that people are ranked according to education, status in the community and above all, how much money they have. So throughout my school years, my class mates were black, white and all shades in between. However, I was a platinum blond little girl with blue eyes, so I stuck out like a sore thumb among my classmates. In fact, I was the only blond in my class throughout all my school years in Brazil.

I remember my first day of school vividly. I stood in line waiting to walk into the classroom, clutching my satchel containing my books and my “merenda” (snack) very excited and more than a little apprehensive of what lay ahead.

Walking along the line up of girls came my very first teacher, Dona Teresinha. I remember her as being a pretty woman with big brown eyes and long black hair she wore in a single pigtail, trailing down one shoulder. When she came to where I stood, she did something that became a morning ritual with her. She bent down and gently pinched my ear lobe murmuring “A meu doucinho de coco,” which means “Ah my little coconut sweetie.” I have no idea why she did that, but she did it every morning. I loved her then and there.

Halfway through the second term of kindergarten, one Monday morning, we received the tragic news that Dona Teresinha had drowned on Boa Viagem beach.

Anyone who thinks a four year old can’t feel devastating grief doesn’t know what they’re talking about. I was heartbroken, and wept so bitterly, they had to phone Mum to come and take me home because I was making all the other little girls cry too. Never again would I feel my ear lobe gently pinched or hear the sweet words “A meu doucinho de coco.”

Shortly after that, we moved south to Morro Velho, a gold mining community in the State of Minas Gerais. There was no public transportation in Morro Velho, so I had to walk a mile to Brazilian school in the mornings, walk a mile home for lunch, then walk a mile and a half to English school in the afternoon. Just to make matters worse, it was all mountainous terrain so either one walked uphill or downhill, which was tedious.

In Brazilian school, they taught math by one system, and in the English by another system, which totally confounded me and to this day, I can’t do math. Thank God for calculators!

We moved yet again, this time to Niteroi, which is opposite to Rio de Janeiro across Guanabarra Bay. I attended a private all girl Catholic School called Pio XI which translated would be Pius XI one of the popes.

This school was run by two sisters and their brother – all geriatric, along with a staff of other teachers. Trust me they were OLD. Dona Dora was the boss, a little woman with a nasty temper but a good teacher. Her sister, Dona Maria Luisa was blind as a bat, which we girls soon discovered because when she did the roll call, she had to hold the roster right up to her nose. We led her a merry dance, by switching places during class, knowing she couldn’t see who was who, and tried to remember us by where we sat in class.

Their brother, Cesare taught science. Now poor old Cesare has a fine pair of gums, but absolutely no teeth. When he talked, his lips flapped around like a sheet on a clothes line during a strong wind. He was almost impossible to understand. Imagine blowing into a balloon that’s bust – that’s how he sounded. (I should mention at this point that I haven’t got one scientific synapse in my brain and I blame it all on poor old Cesare.)

I remember in our first class, a girl raised her hand. “Professor Cesare,” she said smirking. “What is MENSTRUATION?” We all giggled self consciously.

He didn’t bat an eye, and carefully explained the whole menstrual cycle to us in detail! It took the wind right out of our sails, and no one asked him embarrassing questions again.

As I’ve mentioned in a previous blog, I’ve always had problems remembering names. So you can imagine my consternation on finding there were three black girls in our class, one whose name was “MarIsa” the second one was called “MarUsa” and the third one “MarIUsa.” I never got it right, not once.

“Hi Marisa,”

“I am NOT Marisa, I am Marusa,” said with indignation.

“Hi Marusa,”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m NOT Marusa, I’m Mariusa.”

In the end I gave up and just said the “Mari” bit and mumbled the rest. That worked quite well.

This was a Catholic School and at the beginning and end of term, a priest came to the school to hear confession.

Prior to his visit, the girls would walk about during recess writing down their sins. “So Helena, what sins are you going to confess this time?” I heard Irene ask her friend.

Helena sucked on the end of her pencil, then answered “I will confess I lied to my father about why I was home so late one night – I was seeing Ronaldo you know, the dishy guy with curly hair but I told Dad …”

“Oh never mind about Ronaldo. What other sins are you going to confess?”

“That I hit my sister Dorinha …” her eyes blazed. “You know what a little pest Dorinha is? I caught her fiddling in my drawer and…”

“Oh for goodness sake Helena, is that all you’re going to confess?”

“Well yes, can’t think of anything else really.”

Irene crossed her arms. “That’s not enough,” she said sternly.

“What do you mean?” asked a thoroughly bewildered Helena.

“You have to confess a sex sin. Father Anselmo won’t be happy unless you do.”

“Like what kind of a sex sin?” Helena asked anxiously.

“Tell him you let Ronaldo fondle your breasts – Father Anselmo would like that.”

“But I haven’t done that,” Helena wailed.

“Never mind, unless you want to be grilled until you feel like screaming, you’d better tell him this. He won’t be happy until you confess at least one sex sin and he’ll keep on and on at you.”

“Well alright, if you think I should.”

There was a small mountain behind our school and directly on the other side, there was an all boys school. During recess, the lads would climb up to the top of that mountain and ogle us girls.

I should at this point describe our uniforms. We had to wear butt ugly sleeveless navy blue tunics, with a square cut neck and pleats all the way down to mid calf. We wore white blouses under the tunic, and a broad belt encircled our waists.

As soon as we knew the boys were up there watching us, we’d hurriedly pull the upper part of our tunics up, creating a fold over our belts, and showing quite a bit more leg.

This was always appreciatively received by the boys on the hill with whistles, cat calls and howling. We loved it, but would giggle, acting giddy and silly. Sometimes when we felt daring, we’d turn our backs on them and wiggle our asses. This went down really really well with the lads, who shouted encouraging words like “Bend over and tie up your shoelaces querida sweetheart, they’re undone.”

The teachers inevitably heard these goings on, and would rush out, yanking our tunics down to the proper length while berating us soundly for behaving with so little dignity and decorum.

I must confess, I was the class clown. I disrupted class after class with jokes and humour, and everyone would burst out laughing – including my teachers! I was never chastised for being funny. In Brazil, a sense of humour is considered a God given gift so it is fostered and encouraged in a child.

This was certainly not the case when I went to college in England – but that is another story.